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The News 4 I-Team fought a legal battle for more than a year and half for documents from the DCFEMS to shed light on what’s really happening inside the city’s fire department. We explain how staffing, downgrades, sick outs and hiring rules are impacting your safety. (Published Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013)

It's one of the most troubled agencies in our area, where a mistake can mean life or death.

The D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services, or DCFEMS, also has one of the most contentious relationships in the city, with both sides telling very different versions about why things seem to go wrong inside the agency.

So the News4 I-Team fought a legal battle for more than a year-and-a-half to get paperwork from the city, hoping to shed light on what’s really happening inside the city’s fire department.

They show there are some serious problems inside DCFEMS, starting with the sheer number of unfilled positions.

According to the union, known as the DC Firefighters Association Local 36, it takes 360 people to fully staff all positions on any given day. The union claims there are as many as 250 unfilled positions.

Why is that important? DCFEMS says one out of every five calls requires a paramedic. Smith says only paramedics can intubate a patient, administer life-saving drugs and use complex defibrillators. Everyone else is an EMT who can provide “Basic Life Support” like CPR.

He says there are now so many unfilled paramedic jobs, the ones who do show up to work are being forced to work 12-hour mandatory overtime shifts after they've finished their regular 24 hour shift. (See how much DCFEMS employees make.)

When we visited his office in Northeast, Smith pointed to a graphic the union has created of every paramedic unit each day. When you look at July 2011, you can see a smattering of yellow boxes designating the unit on a specific day has been downgraded.

“It wasn't a medic unit, it was a regular ambulance," Smith explains.

Then he flips through July 2012. Many more yellow boxes.

By July 2013, the yellow boxes dominate the screen.

Smith randomly points to July 8 of this year and starts counting the number of units downgraded during that day’s AM shift. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11” he counts out loud and he points to yellow boxes. “Eleven out of the 14 supposed Medic units are supposed to be staffed. Three of them were in. The picture tells the whole story."

Not quite, says Chief Ellerbe.

"People have to come to work,” he says. “That'll keep those boxes from turning yellow."

Chief Ellerbe says, "People have to come to work. We expect folks to come to work whether it’s a holiday or not and that's just the bottom line. This job requires sacrifice and we know that coming in. The pay is good, the benefits are good and we expect folks to respect the fact they have a job to do."

Even Chief Ellerbe says it is time for a pay raise, especially for paramedics who are in such high demand throughout the country. But, he says it’s been difficult getting anyone to even apply because of an old DC law that also required paramedics to be firefighters.

"A lot of employees who want to be EMS providers don't want to be firefighters," he says.

Chief Ellerbe says in April, he convinced the DC government to create a variance that would allow him to hire people only as paramedics. Suddenly, he says, the applications started flooding in.

"We're not running from this stuff. We know we can make things better."